I really enjoyed the book. I read from it everyday. It is very touching and encouraging. I really enjoyed #51 Keep up the good work Mr. Thomas, I look forward to reading more of your publications in the future.

V Whimper

I met Mr. Thomas while he was doing a book signing at a local store in Atlanta. He struck me as a very intelligent young man and he is off to a wonderful beginning with this book. His poems are thoughtful, thought-provoking and just plain good reading. I smiled, I laughed out loud, I cried and I felt good. That's amazing to accomplish in just 68 pages. Must read and a must keep.

First, Mark Anthony Thomas generously feeds us with the spoken word. Second, his reverberating and sustaining voice resonates with an appropriate tone. Therefore, his writing is honest, unpretentious, and written from the heart. Nevertheless, Mark's use of figurative language is also interesting, precise, rich, and full.

Furthermore, Mark imagery is justifiably robust and strong, allowing fresh and appealing expressions bursting with energy! As rhythm is important in music, rhythm to Mark is an easy, even flow...consistently strong and varied: words are skillfully crafted and somewhat musical, natural, and fluent.

Finally, Mark's creative genius is on loan for us to savor and enjoy. We, who are wise, must nurture him and support him!

yiks! i never knew there were other twin towers in other places.
AND i ALWAYS thoought that OUR twin towers were the tallest buildings in the world! (just shows how much i know huh?)
well, o.k. what do you expect from a simple girl growing up in the city and who never went to college... i only know what i see, and to me the twin towers LOOKED like the tallest buildings in the world i still miss them. it still HURTS to look in that direction. tha towers that used to decorate the skyline of my city are gone, but im happy to know that somewhere in another city there are other twins. good to know. thanks.

The twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia became the tallest buildings in the world when they were completed in the latter half of the nineties. This architectural marvel became the first building in about 100 years to be taller than any building in the United States. Of course there are more stories in the Sears Tower (the previous record holder) and the broadcast towers do actually make it higher than the Petronas, but architectural standards for height measure spires but not broadcast towers - go figure. The Sears Tower can also still claim the highest observation deck of a building while the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada has the highest of any structure (the CN being considered a free standing structure and not a "building").

It is a great shame that the world trade towers no longer exist but it has been a long time since they were even the tallest buildings in even the U.S. (see other reviews). The Orient seems to be leaping ahead in building technology and this book illustrates one such example.

Now is the time to get this book as it still proclaims the Petronas as the 'tallest in the world' as plans are under way for even a higher tower in Shanghai, China and the record may again fall. In the present however, the Petronas are a great example of two countries working together with a group of Japanese construction crews working on one tower while the other was completed by Malaysians. This may be the first and only time in building history where such a unique strategy and cooperation took place.

American architects may have started the skyscraper in 'the Chicago school' but the future of tall buildings currently lies in the far east. I recommend this book to those who can swallow their 'America first' pride and see the glowing accomplishment of architecture in that region of the world.

A Canadian Perspective

P.S. Other reviewers should read the book or at least look at the description before pasting thoughts that are not relevant.

Why did two people write reviews of this book without knowing that it has nothing to do with horrible Sept. 11? One reviewer even expresses disappointment at the idea that this book is not about the NYC Twin Towers! Hunh? Look at the title - - they're different buildings!

Whatever. They are stunning buildings, as were the NYC Twin Towers.

If you have an interest in the architecture and amazing engineering challenges that brought these amazing structures into our lives (we in the West will not be building impractical skyscrapers evermore) ... this is a great overview.

The editors of this book add an interesting note at the end on the subject of the translation of the text. They point out that the sayings of Jesus contained in the book represent a 'paraphrase' since the principal of 'dynamic equivalence' was followed in producing their work. They do not seek a word-for-word translation but rather an overall meaning. Many scholars may be turned off by this approach.

The arguments for the existence of THE LOST GOSPEL Q put forth by Marcus Borg in the Preface are the most interesting and provocative part of this book. It is easy to understand why the work of the Jesus Seminar is challenged by skeptics. However, I do think it is important not to dismiss it too quickly before it receives the attention and scrutiny it deserves. THE LOST GOSPEL Q is a serious attempt to shed light on the historical Jesus.

This book is based on the theory that the Gospel of Mark was written before any of the other synoptic Gospels. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke were then written with the help of those from Mark and another unknown source which is called the Gospel Q. In 1838 a German noticed that there were many sayings of Jesus which were common to Matthew and Luke but not included in Mark. The Lost Gospel Q is comprised of these sayings. Adding fuel to the argument was the discovery in 1945 near the Upper Nile River in Egypt of a codex called the Gospel of Thomas. It contained 114 sayings of Jesus. Over one-third of these sayings were similar to those found in the Lost Gospel Q.

If you accept the idea of the probable existence of Q, then you can look forward to reading sayings of Jesus which were recorded and used by some of His earliest followers less than two decades after His death and resurrection.

I have loved this show since I first listenend to the recording, and after seeing the show I think I may be obsessed with it. The show is completely fun and entertaining and this book does a good job at capturing the spirit and energy of the show. I particularly like all the full color photos and candids of the cast offstage as well as the "diary" entries from Marisa Jaret Winokur (Tracy) and Harvey Firestein (Edna). This book is worth it!

If you're a fan of the Broadway musical Hairspray, then you need this book. It's really that simple. In addition to a detailed history of the show, tons of photos, insider information, detailed analyses of previous versions of the script and the script that was eventually used, and even more information in general than you could possibly digest in one (or even two) readings, it's full of exactly the same kind of wacky, irreverant style and humor that's found in the show and that's helped to make it such a big success on Broadway. Hairspray: The Roots is hip, hilarious, colorful, and, in its own way, very musical.

Only one thing prevents the book from being the perfect example of its kind and earning a five star rating: it does not preserve the entire complete libretto of the show, choosing instead to eliminate the dialogue in places and replace it with scene descriptions. While this is unthinkable and incomprehensible given the sheer amount of information that was included and the great care that has been put into every other element of it, in the end, this particular frustration remains minor. If you can live with that, you'll find no other flaw in this remarkable, must-own volume.

I mostly agreed with Eric Ma. There are some areas that Wrox needs to review the whole process of publishing Java-related books. Here are some drawbacks that I can draw from reading recent Java-related books:

(1) Repeated Contents: Materials about Servlet, JSP, EJB, JNDI, JDBC, XML, etc are repeated over and over many books. This could waste time, money, and papers for both Wrox and readers.

(2)Books or Articles?: I asked myself: is Wrox publishing books or articles? Each book is written by many authors and the book's flow is inconsistent. The assessment that it is not a book but a collection of articles may partially true. It is true that a book if written by a team of authors could speed up the process of releasing it, but if Wrox editors and coordinators have to do their better jobs.

I suggest that Wrox should review its strategy of publishing books to avoid the repeating of materials over and over and thus bring down the cost associated with publishing the books. The final result is: readers and publisher will both save time and money. Otherwise, readers will loose their belief with Wrox.

For the past 2 years Wrox has been publishing books dedicated to Windows-based data access (ADO etc.), but the same cannot be said about their Java/database collection. Although you find chapters on JDBC scattered all-over almost all server-side Java related books by Wrox, there was no single volume from them that teaches JDBC first, and then show how it is used by the newer dependent technologies, until this book arrived. After looking through this book, I must say the authors and editors have done a rather commendable job.

Why do I make the above conclusion? Let me give you my general impression of the book first. A theme repeated in several of my recent reviews on books from Wrox is about the problem in coherence associated with multi-author books. Well, having more than a dozen of authors for a single book seems to be a fact of life (for books from Wrox at least) now, as the publication cycle gets shorter. I was rather surprised to find out that the organization and coherence is very good in this book, i.e., there is very little overlap among chapters. Also, this books uses JDBC cleverly to tie other pieces of J2EE together, making smooth transitions from one chapter to another. If you want to know, this factor alone prompted me to add an extra star to the overall rating of the book.

Let's now run down the chapters of this book quickly. The first 115 pages deals object-oriented and database modeling, and can be skipped by any "Professional" developer. Then after your obligatory intro to JDBC API, the next chapter covers the JDBC 2.0 optional package. This is the best treatment of this topic I have seen. Then another chapter is all about SQLJ, another first. The effort of having a chapter on database performance should be lauded, where connection pooling, prepared statements and stored procedures usage are demoed. The reminder of the book is about applying JDBC in various J2EE components, such as JSP, servlets, EJB, JMS, and XML. For this part of the book, even though I accept the fact the proper stage has to be set for each one of them, I still don't believe the book found the right balance between focusing on JDBC and showing what these other technologies are about. A large number of pages are used to teach basic JNDI, servlets, JSP's, and EJB's stuff (remember there is already a book on J2EE from Wrox!). Therefore, it is up to the reader to discover the real nuggets of gold hidden in this pile, which are far and in between in places. I found that some critical issues are not highlighted or details are lacking, such as how to use connection pooling/data sources in servlets, JSP's, and EJB's, the threading issues related to sharing database connections, and good database practices in BMP EJB's. However, the one thing I cannot complain about is that the book did not forget to teach the transaction aspect of EJB with a good depth (there is a short ans sweet chapter on using JTA/JTS inside EJB). There is also a chapter on the brand-new JDO framework, even though the spec is still in a state of flux. Finally, there are 4 case study chapters in the book - although the design and implementation are limited in scope and as a whole those samples do not teach all you need to do know about enterprise scale J2EE system development, they do provide a flavor of how JDBC is used in real world, together with setting up Tomcat, JRun, Orion, and WebLogic to access MS SQL Server and Oracle databases.

Now my overall take of this book. For VB/SQL and pure back-end PL/SQL developers who are eager to jump on the Java express train and need a suitable platform (especially for the ones who learn best from playing with actual code), I recommend this book as one of several you should own. Compared to other JDBC books from say O'Reilly and Sun's JDBC Tutorial, this book is the most up-to-date, contains the most source code, and has the broadest coverage of related topics. But keep in mind some of the advanced topics such as EJB and JMS can be intimidating for new-comers. On the other side of the coin, people who are advanced in various server-side Java technologies are unlikely to benefit a great deal from this book and should look elsewhere for info (for example Wrox's J2EE and upcoming EJB titles).

This text is a timely and insightful work. The authors give a good overview of the major assessment instruments used in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education. Procedural guidelines, cultural validity and family concerns are also discussed. I found that the book is a great reference tool to go back to when questions arise! I would recommend this book to anyone working in the field of Special Education.

This is a beautiful book--not at all the kind of thing you'd find waiting on the shelf in any of the bookstore chains. It's a giant paperback with glossy wrappers, with a terrific design for the text, and it lies open easily--the same dimensions as Jargon's edition of Joel Oppenheimer's Selected Early Poems. A big book to make a big impression.

Throughout, Meyer cultivates an epicurean persona, writing often about his desire for the finer things in life--especially sex. The poems are a mix of free verse, sonnets, and more formally experimental work. In addition to Meyer's original poems, there are translations and remarkably inventive adaptations. The variety of the work represented is one of this selection's great pleasures.

It is difficult to appreciate a short story that is filled with sentences of one long word after another. However, Becker's reading of Twain makes it flow together so well that you just have to laugh out loud. Jounalism in Tennesse and Political Economy come to mind as I imagine that Lightning Rod Salesman just carrying on and the young editor trying to be impressive with his suave article which is later ripped to shreds by the author. How I Edited the Agricultural Paper was grand and I listened to it several times finding it funnier each time.

I loathe this book, and will sell it. All of the pictures are poorly lit and grainy, which don't show you anything in terms of structure. All of the models are super thin almost to a nauseating point. Its sad when you have to search through the book hoping to find the LEAST ugly person to draw. Also, the poses are in motion. I will give him that. However some of the poses are so funny and unrealistic, that I nearly fell off my chair laughing. We have the "I have an object stuck in my rear" pose and...Some of them are so out there I cannot describe them. I totally do not recommend this book.

This book has helped my drawing tremendously. Where else can you find photos of figures in these kinds of positions?
I am now far more able to depict dynamic tension, flow, balance and proportion.
Sure the photos are a little grainy and the lighting and printing sometimes don't show every muscle, but this is not an anatomy book. No single book will give you everything. I have taken what I've learned in anatomy books and applied it to the figures in this book.
As a result, I am creating images that are more creative and satisfying then ever before.
This book has helped me go from static posed drawings to characters in action and situations.
I take one star off only because with all the use I give it, the binding hasn't held up well and the pages are starting to come out of the book. I guess sprial binding would be the only way to avoid this problem.
Other than that, I like this book!

this book was amazing for me to work with. the pictures are kinda grainy, but the shadows and light show the body structure really well. Over 40 pages were devoted to the male figure, although a few of the male photos were hard to decifer where there was shadow or just a really hairy man. Again these are thin models, and i was disappointed that there weren't more curvy girls in this book. A few baby pictures at the end of the book. this is a black and white refrence book so beware if you are looking for colour. But overall this is a good refrence for frolicking drawings and paintings ect. good luck! and happy buying

Being a fan of Mark Nesbitt's Ghost of Gettysburg book series I was sold on the idea of reading his new book that told of two soldiers of opposing armies brought together at Gettysburg. Nesbitt's approach to telling the diaries of two soldiers written on similar dates was a great idea though I found that the Union story of Private Horner lacked the details compared to his opposition Confederate Private Ware. Ware's details seem to blur Horner's quick and rather limited writing. Both soldiers certainly write about the marching and battle while Nesbitt tries to balance army movements with historical backing and concepts. I found the maps helpful but often hard to follow because they were photos of very detailed maps that made things hard to read in black and white. Had they been less of detail or re-drawn for the book as other history books it would have been much easier to comprehend. As much as I am a fan of Nesbitt's work I found myself reading this book and wanting more detail as the book is a very quick read. I would have liked to give this book 3.5 Stars though Amazon's rating system doesn't allow for halves.

I really liked this book. This book is great for people who like history. This book is about two men and their diaries. The book is also about the battle of Gettysburg.

35 Days To Gettysburg: The Campaign Diaries Of Two American Enemies by Civil War enthusiast Mark Nesbitt features the daily journal entries of two ordinary soldiers caught up in the American Civil War: Thomas Lewis Ware, a Confederate from rural Georgia; and Franklin Horner, a Union soldier from Pennsylvania coal land. Their various perspectives and recorded experiences (sometimes conflicting, sometimes all too parallel), lead up to one of the bloodiest battles in the entire four year conflict, are vividly recounted with meticulous notes and a comprehensive index in this truly fascinating compilation. 35 Days To Gettysburg is a superbly presented primary source offering an up-close and personal a view of America's deadliest war, and a truly welcome and much appreciated contribution to the growing library of American Civil War studies.